Panel on social media at High Times’ U.S. Cannabis Cup in Seattle on Saturday: Jen Bernstein (High Times editor far right), Bianca Barnhill, The Potcast (two gentlemen on the left), and Radical Russ Belville. (Photo: Jake Ellison/Seattlepi.com)

In the social media panel discussion at the Cup, Russ Belville (420radio.com) and High Times’ Bianca Barnhill said they had in fact noticed a dramatic jump in social media noise and interest in marijuana after CNN’s top medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta and the Department of Justice both made announcements on pot.

To review briefly, Gupta said he had mistakenly said there were no medical reasons for medical marijuana to be legalized but: “We have been terribly and systematically misled for nearly 70 years in the United States, and I apologize for my own role in that. I hope this article and upcoming documentary will help set the record straight.”

Okay, then the DOJ came out and said it wouldn’t sue to stop the Washington and Colorado from creating and running legal marijuana markets for recreational use.

“Their revelations are the first inkling that the mainstream media has that things are changing,” Belville said.

“For someone (Gupta) like that to say he was wrong, made a lot of people rethink marijuana,” Barnhill said.

Michael Mona Jr., president and CEO of Cannavest out of Las Vegas. (Photo: Jake Ellison/ Seattlepi.com)

Walking through the Cannabis Cup market areas, I spotted a man wearing a shirt that said “Cannavest” … I admit that I thought at first it was a strange product to do with vests …

But he is an investment manager and business owner from Los Vegas.

NY Times business section listed as : “CannaVEST Corp., formerly Foreclosure Solutions, Inc., is engaged in the business of developing, producing, marketing and selling end consumer products to the nutriceutical industry containing the hemp plant extract, Cannabidoil (CBD).”

He agreed to a quick interview:

Has the marijuana investment world grown since those (above) announcements: